Text-Formatting Shortcuts for Illustrator

In design (or any business), time is money. Anything that can save a few seconds and eliminate tedium is a good thing. Shortcut key combinations do both.

Of course, designers typically fall into one of three camps when it comes to using shortcut key combinations. The first group use them religiously. The second prefer the mouse. The third would use shortcut combinations... if only they could remember them. If you fall into that third category, here's a list of text-formatting shortcut key combinations built into Adobe Illustrator:

Effect

Windows

Mac

Increase type size incrementally

Ctrl+Shift+>

⌘+Shift+>

Decrease type size incrementally

Ctrl+Shift+<

⌘+Shift+<

Increase leading incrementally

Alt+↓

Option+↓

Decrease leading incrementally

Alt+↑

Option+↑

Increase baseline shift incrementally

Alt+Shift+↑

Option+Shift+↑

Decrease baseline shift incrementally

Alt+Shift+↓

Option+Shift+↓

Increase kerning/tracking incrementally

Alt+→

Option+→

Decrease kerning/tracking incrementally

Alt+←

Option+←

Restore kerning to Metrics and tracking to 0

Ctrl+Alt+Q

⌘+Option+Q

Toggle automatic hyphenation

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H

⌘+Option+Shift+H

Left-align paragraph

Ctrl+Shift+L

⌘+Shift+L

Right-align paragraph

Ctrl+Shift+R

⌘+Shift+R

Center paragraph

Ctrl+Shift+C

⌘+Shift+C

Justify paragraph (except last line)

Ctrl+Shift+J

⌘+Shift+J

Justify paragraph (including last line)

Ctrl+Shift+F

⌘+Shift+F

So what does any of this have to do with puppies? Nothing really. We were just curious.

REVIEW
Technology writer Deke McClelland shares the fundamentals of Adobe Illustrator CS5, with step-by-step tutorials designed to help you get the most out of this powerful software. Lessons provide guidance and advice, with real-world projects you can try and multiple-choice quizzes to take along the way. The book includes access to six hours of web video, as well, hosted by the author.